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Enlarge ImageRequest to buy this photoEraldo Peres | associated pressBrazilians march in the capital Brasilia, demanding free public transit and protesting the money poured into soccer stadiums for the current Confederations Cup and next year’s World Cup.

SAO PAULO — With massive protests by middle-class Brazilians demanding wholesale government
reforms, people all over this continent-sized country have reached a verdict on the streets and
online: “The giant has awakened.”

President Dilma Rousseff has tried to placate the crowds by supporting their right to protest,
and the Sao Paulo municipal government has rescinded the 10-cent hike in bus and subway fares that
sparked the demonstrations in the first place. But as the protests grow, with two major marches
called for today, the Brazilian government seems at a loss over how to address the sweeping demands
of its people.

Protesters have presented the government with myriad demands and a growing list of complaints:
It can’t provide its citizens with basic security, officials are corrupt and inefficient, traffic
is bottlenecked on pot-holed streets, and even cellphones don’t work. And the investment that
should be going into health care and education are pouring into soccer stadiums and airports
instead.

The protests began a week ago in Sao Paulo and spread quickly to other cities after an initial
police crackdown on demonstrators. They have become a collective, if unorganized, cry for help from
a newly expanded middle class that expects more for its taxes and from its democratically elected
left-of-center government.

How to quell the discontent adds up to the stiffest challenge yet to the ruling Workers Party
since it took power in 2003. Rousseff has been meeting with former President Luiz Inacio Lula da
Silva and Sao Paulo Mayor Fernando Haddad in search of a solution.

A poll of protesters attending this week’s rallies in Sao Paulo shows they are solidly middle
class. Three-quarters have a university degree, half are younger than 25 and more than 80 percent
say they don’t belong to any political party, according to the survey by the respected Datafolha
group.

“There is a clear sense among the Brazilian middle class that the Workers Party has ignored
them,” said Riordan Roett, director of the Latin American studies program at Johns Hopkins
University’s School of Advanced International Studies. “There is no short-term answer. There has to
be a multiparty dialogue to gauge just how deep the frustration goes and how government responses
must be prioritized. Rousseff has to cut across the political spectrum for answers.”